Bringing Maddie Home(26)
Author: Janice Kay Johnson

“I… You don’t think…?”

“No. But right now, I need to keep you close.”

“Are you going to stand there staring at me while I sleep?” she joked, wishing her voice hadn’t wobbled in the middle. She could not imagine lying down and closing her eyes with him watching.

“I won’t do anything you don’t like,” he said gently.

Nell let herself look into his gray eyes. It was like falling down the rabbit’s hole, tumbling and tumbling. She couldn’t look away.

She knew what she wanted, but…was it what he wanted, too?

He took a step closer and cupped her cheek in his hand. “Nell?”

A little sound escaped her. Tears burned her eyes, and she couldn’t do anything but step forward, almost as close as she wanted to be.

“Nell,” he said again, this time sounding raw. The next minute, he was kissing her, devouring her, and she lost herself in a kind of pleasure she had never even dreamed she could feel. She flung her arms around his strong neck. He gripped one buttock and lifted her against him even as his other hand cradled her head. She was shaking, and thought he was, too.

He tore his mouth away at last and looked down at her, the gray of his eyes now molten. “Nell, the last thing I want is for you to feel pressured. I’m here for you, no matter what. Tell me you know that.”

“I know that.” She rose on tiptoe and pressed kisses along his hard, scratchy jaw. “I know you wouldn’t abandon me.”

“I want you.”

A chill chased away some of her body heat. “I want you, too, but…I have to tell you something first.”

His fingers sifted with exquisite gentleness through her hair. “Are you infected with HIV? Something else?” He sounded impossibly kind.

A little shocked, she stared at him. “No!”

“Then what, Nell?”

She closed her eyes, feeling such shame. Wanting to hide from the expression she feared to see on his face. “When I first got to Portland…I was afraid to ask for help, or go to a shelter. Some older kids sort of took me under their wing. They thought I was even younger than I really was.” She opened her eyes. “I did, too.”

“I know what you’re going to say, Nell.” His hand slid around to lift her chin. “Those kids told you how you could make enough money to buy food, maybe pay your share of a room, didn’t they? They probably told you where to go and what to say, how much money to ask for.”

Her face wanted to crumple, but she nodded.

“What were your options? Begging, stealing or selling yourself.”

“I couldn’t make myself steal. I just couldn’t.” She gave a broken laugh. “Letting a man do…do that upset me less than shoplifting. What does that say about me?”

For a moment something hard and dangerous crossed his face. “You’re honest,” he said finally. “That’s what it says.”

She shook her head even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what had passed through his mind. “You were thinking something else.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “All right. I’ll tell you, but first let’s go in the bedroom. I’ll tuck you in, and then you can invite me…or not. Completely optional.”

After a moment she nodded, wanting to believe she was courageous enough to take a step so monumental.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WITH COLIN’S ARM around her, Nell felt brave. Besides, the worst was behind her, wasn’t it? She’d told him, and he really didn’t seem to mind.

As he guided her toward the back of the house, she caught a glimpse of an office. The other room, the one he steered her into, had a huge bed with a comforter covered in patterned ivory and navy blue flannel. She had trouble taking in anything but the bed. She made herself glance around, however, pretending if only to herself that accompanying a man to his bedroom was at least a seminormal occurrence for her. She liked the few furnishings, the simple Shaker-style. Closet doors were closed.

He sat her on the bed and knelt to untie her shoes.

“Oh!” Nell tried to stand. “You don’t have to…”

He smiled at her, so much tenderness in his expression she came close to crying. “I want to.” When she sank back down, he removed first her shoes then her socks before rising to his feet. “Do you want to take off your jeans?”

“I…suppose so.” Feeling the heat in her cheeks, she stood and shimmied out of them quickly, pulling back covers and climbing in before she dared look at him again. Then she lay back against his pillow, comforter tucked under her arms.

“Scoot over.” When she did, he sat beside her. “Have you done any reading about repressed memories?”

Her breath came faster and she quit worrying about where she was or that she was already half-undressed. “Yes.”

“Then you know that a common theme is sexual abuse. More than children who are physically battered, ones who are sexually molested learn to distance themselves. Go away in their head, so whatever is happening to them feels unreal.”

“But who…?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Your brother is too young. Your father leaped to mind, but you don’t seem to react to him as if you have that kind of history with him.”

“I wish I knew for sure,” she said, troubled. “Could it have been Beck?”

“You associate him with something traumatic, but if he made sexual advances you didn’t like, why wouldn’t you just have said no? He didn’t have any hold over you. You could have avoided him.”

“That’s true. And then there’s his shirt. It was comforting to me, not scary.”

“Were there any other adults you spent a lot of time with?”

“I don’t know. I can ask Felix. I’d say my parents, but they’re pretty mad at me right now. I asked why I was such a disappointment to them.”

“Didn’t go well, huh?” he said sympathetically.

“No. I probably shouldn’t have bothered. Mom said I was acting like a spoiled teenager and stalked out. Dad was mad because I had upset her.” She shrugged. “No great insights shared.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounded as if he really meant it.

“I wasn’t as upset as I thought I might be. I guess I didn’t expect anything else.”

His jaw set. He seemed to have trouble speaking. “I’m really starting to hate your parents,” he finally said, then shook his head. “And I shouldn’t have said that.”

She smiled and touched his hand, lying on the cover temptingly near hers. “Why not? I appreciate the sentiment.”

His hand captured hers, not letting her draw back. “It occurs to me we should talk to your uncle Duane. As far as I know, he didn’t spend that much time with you, but it won’t hurt to ask him.”

Why didn’t she remember this uncle at all? Her puzzlement didn’t last long; why didn’t she remember most of the kids she’d gone to school with, or her teachers? Why didn’t she remember most of her life?

“Ask Felix, too,” Colin continued. “You may have been involved in some activity. Debate, Knowledge Bowl? There could have been overnight trips to competitions.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so, but…” She felt a spurt of temper. “Oh, do you know how tired I am of having to say ‘I don’t know’?”

“I can imagine.”

Both were silent for a moment, and her thoughts jumped back to her confession. Maybe she wasn’t done with what she had to say.

“I feel dirty when I think about what I did.” The burning pressure in her sinuses was different from her “trying to remember” headaches, but just as bad. “I don’t see how anyone else can not despise me.”

He shook his head, and she could see only tenderness and understanding. “I hate that it happened for your sake. I kept a picture of you where I could see it for twelve years. You looked so young, so innocent, and yet also so sad. It’s hard for me to imagine that girl enduring what you did.”

She blinked hard to keep herself from crying. “I only did it a few times. I thought I could stand it, but I couldn’t. I got by after that for a couple more months by hanging out in fast-food restaurants and snatching food out of the trash when people threw it away. They had clean bathrooms, too, and nobody paid that much attention to who was hanging around.”

He closed his eyes. “God, Nell.”

She remembered him saying, You’re breaking my heart, and wondered if she could. If he felt that much for her, and why.

“You really don’t mind.”

He looked at her again. “For your sake,” he repeated. “Not mine.”

She waited for him to tell her she really should sleep and they could talk about this later. Under the guise of caring, it would be easy for him to leave her without overtly rejecting her. But when he didn’t move, her heart felt as if it were swelling painfully in her chest.

“The thing is,” she said in a husky voice, “since then, I’ve never…”

Heat flared in his eyes, but he seemed to deliberately bank it. “I don’t suppose you associated men with anything good.”

“No.” She hadn’t consciously thought, I don’t like men, but knew now that it was true. She kept her distance from them. Her friends were all women. She exchanged as few words as possible with their husbands and had certainly never gotten to a hugging or kissing-on-the-cheek stage with any of them. She was cautious around men who came into the library. Not afraid, just…not letting them get too close. No wonder, now that she knew what her relationship with her father had been like. She’d had no basis for trust.

So how was it she had trusted Beck? If I actually did, she reminded herself.

“Were you a virgin the first time, Nell?”

She stared at Colin, shocked. “Of course I was!” Then she realized how illogical she was being and shook her head. “That’s a dumb thing to say. But it means I wasn’t sexually abused, doesn’t it?”

He was shaking his head even before she finished. “The abuse didn’t have to involve penetration. It could have been no more than touching. That’s plenty traumatic when you know it’s wrong and nobody will listen to you.” He kept his tone matter-of-fact, although a thread of strain told her it was taking him some effort. “There could have been or*l s*x. A man could have been grooming you for later, when you were more physically mature.”

She knew all those things happened because at SafeHold, she’d heard stories that gave her nightmares.

So why was it that, beneath her surface calm, pain gathered in her head, as bad as when she tried to remember Beck? Worse. She was so close to remembering this. Touches. Commands. Affection disguising something horrible. It happened to me. I know it did.

“Nell,” Colin said sharply. She blinked and discovered he was shaking her lightly, his hands on her shoulders. His face was creased with worry.

“I’m okay.” The sight of him brought her back to the here and now. The anxiety diminished. “I almost knew something,” she whispered. “I think…it did happen. What you said.”

“But you don’t know who.”

She shook her head quickly. “It was almost there, but…not. My head started to hurt.”

“Like at the restaurant.” He groaned. “My fault again. I’m pushing you.”

Nell stiffened. “I’m pushing me. I won’t be safe until I remember. I have to remember.”

“It’ll come.”

“When?” she cried. “When?”

“I don’t know.” His guilt and discouragement weren’t hard to see. “Maybe I should leave you. Let you get some rest.”

It was only what she’d expected, Nell reminded herself. She didn’t blame him. She lifted her chin to be sure he didn’t know he’d hurt her. “If that’s what you want.”

“Damn it, Nell, you know it’s not what I want.” He glared at her. “I want you. But you’ve had enough today. We have time.”

Did they? She had come so close to dying today, she knew better. She sucked in a fortifying breath. “I’d like it if you would stay.” Uncertainty kicked in. “If…if you really mean it.”

His eyes blazed. “You’re sure?”

She nodded, even if she was also afraid of the unknown.

“Uh…give me a minute.” To her surprise, he stood and went into the bathroom. A drawer opened and closed, then another one. What on earth…? But when he came back, she thought, Oh. He had something in his hand.

He bent and unlaced his shoes and kicked them off, tossed his socks on top of them. He hesitated and unbuttoned his dress shirt, leaving it dangling over a rocking chair. Nell’s breath caught at the sight of his broad, nak*d chest. Over strong muscles, dark hair formed a triangle ending in a line that disappeared inside his slacks.

“Too much?” he asked, in a deep voice.

She gave her head an emphatic shake.

His mouth quirked in an almost-smile as he unfastened a narrow black belt and the button at his waist, then eased the zipper down. Beneath he wore snug-fitting navy blue knit boxer shorts that did nothing to hide the extent of his arousal. She desperately wanted him to shed those, too—and yet it was a little bit of a relief when he didn’t.

He grabbed the duvet, said for a second time, “Scoot over,” and slid into bed beside her. Rolling onto his side to face her, he smiled wryly, probably at the sight of her near-panic.

“Your first time.”

That made her stomach dip. “It’s not.” Had he not believed her?

“What you did wasn’t making love.”

“Is that what you call it when you want to have sex?”